Harry Potter and the Carrot Cake of Doom
by Elektra3
Summary: In which Ron and Hermione are clueless, Harry discovers his love of knitting, the Death Eaters learn how to cook - and why has Voldemort started wearing a pink, frilly apron?
1. Prologue

From my summary, you may have gathered that this story will be rather strange. Let me correct you: This story will be about as strange you can get while still having a plot. No smut or graphic violence but… well, let's just say that you have been warned. Enjoy!  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for Elba Mafinki-Phurphenblossom, who is mine from the roots of her long golden hair to the tips of her pedicured toes. Everything else belongs to the goddess of the Harry Potter universe, J.K. Rowling. I am not worthy.  
  
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1 Prologue  
  
Despite the fact that it was actually a nice day in July, the sky was a roiling black-and-purple mass that looked like a pot of seriously deranged Jell-O. It looked that way because… um… because there needed to be a dramatic backdrop for Our Boy Voldemort thinking Very Evil Thoughts. But we don't need to talk about the reasons for scenery being the way it is, hmm?  
  
Anyway, to cut a very tedious and long-winded introduction short, the sky was currently black-and-purple colored, and Voldemort was thinking Very Evil Thoughts. So evil were those thoughts, in fact, that his mirror – a very nice antique that Lucius Malfoy had thoughtfully picked up at one of those Muggle yard sales – crumbled into dust when it came into contact with his malevolent scarlet gaze. Damn it. That was the tenth one this week.  
  
"Wormtail!" he bellowed as loudly as his annoyingly high-pitched voice would allow. "Get your fat ass in here!" No. Wrong phrasing. Definitely not quite right for his image. Maybe, "If you aren't in here in thirty seconds, I'll rip out your spleen and feed it to Nagini?" Mmm… nah. It lacked that dignified, menacing air that was so crucial to a Dark Lord. Decisions, decisions, decisions.  
  
Voldemort's ruminations about word choice were cut off by the arrival of Wormtail in all his wheezing unglory. "Yes," wheeze, wheeze, "My," wheeze, "Lord?"  
  
"Ah, Wormtail," Voldemort said with sarcastic expansiveness. "So glad you could make it. I hope I'm not keeping you from any important social engagements?"  
  
Wormtail colored. "No, My Lord."  
  
Voldemort's lips curved into a mirthless smile. "I'm delighted to hear it. Now be a good little minion and get me a new mirror. This last one seems to have," he spared a careless glance behind him, "met a rather unfortunate end."  
  
Wormtail bowed jerkily and turned to go. "Yes, My Lord."  
  
"Crucio."  
  
He waited patiently for Wormtail's pathetic sobs to subside. "I don't believe I gave you permission to go, Peter," he said silkily. Wormtail went rigid at the sound of his given name. "You really should pay closer attention, you know. Send in MacNair when you leave. I believe that he has information about that… other matter we discussed earlier in the summer."  
  
Wormtail jerked back as if he had been struck. "About the Cake, My Lord?" he said hoarsely.  
  
Voldemort smiled patronizingly. "Yes, Wormtail, about the Cake." He paused, the smirk of amusement still hovering about his lips. "Now, run along and play."  
  
As Wormtail scurried out of the room, the Dark Lord shook his head. It was so hard to get good help these days.  
  
There was a knock on the door. "Come in," Voldemort called.  
  
MacNair stepped into the room, holding that ridiculous axe he insisted on hauling around everywhere, and bowed. "You sent for me, My Lord?"  
  
"Ah, MacNair. Our resident Ministry animal molester."  
  
MacNair's chest puffed out as though he had just been praised instead of insulted. Then again, the man had never been very bright. Of course, it might just have been a side affect of all those full frontal lobotomies that Snape had performed on him when they had been at Hogwarts together. "Yes, My Lord."  
  
"You have information about the Cake." He didn't bother to make it a question. If MacNair didn't have the information, he would never have dared come back.  
  
"Yes, My Lord," MacNair repeated. He handed Voldemort a sealed package. "This is what I found."  
  
Voldemort arched an eyebrow. "Is it…"  
  
MacNair smirked. "Yes, My Lord. It is."  
  
"Good." He broke open the seal after probing it with his wand. "You may go."  
  
After MacNair had strutted out the door, Voldemort removed the package's contents. Oh, yes, it certainly was what he had been looking for. So innocent an item, but one that would bring down the world. He stared at the pink, frilly apron, not caring that mad, high-pitched laughter was issuing from his mouth. 


	2. Bizarre Cake Recipes and Yaks In Distres...

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, do you think I would be writing fanfiction?  
  
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1 Chapter 1: Bizarre Cake Recipes and Yaks In Distress  
  
1.1 The early morning peace and quiet of Malfoy Manor was blown apart by the sound of Lucius Malfoy bellowing, "Severus! I need you!" via the magical intercom system that he had set up a few years ago. Lucius, Severus had noticed from long experience, had two different voices. His normal voice was smoothly supercilious; the other, which was only used in times of great agitation, bore an uncanny resemblance to that of a yak in distress. Severus shook his head in disgust, recognizing the latter voice. Lucius had never responded well to surprises.  
  
"Severus!"  
  
He tapped the speaker with his wand and said, "Coming, Lucius." Swinging his legs out of bed, he yawned his way over to the wardrobe and put on a fresh robe. A shower could wait; all manner of things could happen when Lucius was in the midst of one of his temper tantrums. He recalled with a shudder the time Henry Lestrange had accidentally knocked over Lucius' pumpkin juice.  
  
Upon reaching Lucius' study, he knocked on the door and waited. "Come in," Lucius' voice called. It was now wavering between smoothness and yak-in-distress mode, making him sound like an adolescent boy.  
  
"What is it, Lucius?" he asked with a bite of impatience in his voice. "It must be quite important to make you get up at this ungodly hour."  
  
Lucius waved off the sarcasm. "Yes, Severus, it is." He picked up a piece of parchment. "This arrived last night."  
  
Severus glanced at the parchment, doing a double take when he saw the name at the top. "Ah." He slanted a glance at Lucius. Was it only his imagination, or had the man's face become even paler than it usually was? "I fail, however, to see why this is the cause of such agitation."  
  
Lucius sighed with – was it resignation? "Look at Step Three."  
  
Severus looked at him with narrowed eyes, then shrugged and looked down at the parchment. It appeared to be a fairly normal cake recipe, given the somewhat… eclectic ingredients. Stir in the Basilisk eyes with the hen's blood… add the powdered dragon tongue… add the Acromantula eggs, lightly beaten… what on earth?  
  
He blinked, and then shook his head, sure that he hadn't seen it right, but when he looked down at the parchment again, it was the same as he had seen before. "Step Three," it read. "Get in touch with your inner child."  
  
Severus looked at Lucius, completely deadpan. "I believe that the Dark Lord specifically said that these directions must be followed literally?"  
  
Forget about being in distress; the yak was now in its death throes. "Yes. He did."  
  
Severus didn't say anything pointed about ambitious Death Eaters who wheedled their way into coveted positions before finding out what the position was. He didn't have to. He simply looked at Lucius Malfoy, the well-bred scion of one of the world's richest wizarding families, looked back down at the cake recipe, and collapsed on the study floor, howling with laughter.  
  
His last coherent thought was that they would have to give the yak a nice funeral. 


	3. I Have To WHAT?

Disclaimer: 'Tis not mine, except for my dear Elba Mafinki-Phurphenblossom and the Carrot Cake of Doom. No, you won't meet either of them yet. Remember, all deranged avatars-of-now-defunct-deities-turned-DADA-teachers and lethal (but tasty!) pastries come to those who wait. Everything else belongs to J.K. Rowling, so lawsuit-wielding maniacs STAY AWAY!  
  
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Chapter 2: I Have To WHAT?  
  
At the same time his Potions professor was collapsing into fits of hysterical laughter, Harry Potter was staring at his Aunt Petunia with a look of complete befuddlement on his face. "Sorry," Harry said, trying to coax some semblance of normalcy out of the statement she had just made, "but did you just say that I have to knit a scarf for Dudley?"  
  
Aunt Petunia glowered at him. For such a prim-looking, skinny woman, it was remarkable how much she managed to look like one of Hagrid's infamous Blast-Ended Skrewts. "Yes," she snapped, "and don't be all day about it. I want it ready in time for my Duddykins' going-away party tomorrow."  
  
"But – I don't even know how to knit."  
  
For an instant, a strange, glazed look passed over Aunt Petunia's face and her mouth moved soundlessly, but an instant later she was looking as pinched and snappish as ever. "Don't lie to me, boy," she said, handing a pair of knitting needles and a ball of yarn. "Of course you know how. What about the Sfardnik in the Sfinky-Bassum?"  
  
Harry just stared at her. The what in the what?  
  
The strange, glazed look passed over her face again. "Yes, well," she said briskly. "I need to take a nap in the bath. I mean – have a shower in bed. I mean – "  
  
"Er – "  
  
But Aunt Petunia had marched off in the direction of the kitchen, muttering something about purple envelopes dancing on the treetops. Harry stared after her for a moment, decided that he didn't really want to know, and sat down to begin knitting Dudley's scarf.  
  
The only problem was, as he had told – well, tried to tell Aunt Petunia; he didn't think that she had been too clear on what he had said – was that he didn't, in fact, know how to knit. After a half-hour of trying to recreate what he had seen old ladies on buses do, all he had managed to make was a large knot of red yarn. Undoing the knot, he sighed to himself. The Dursleys, and not just Aunt Petunia, had been acting strangely all summer. It wasn't that they were being nastier than they usually were – actually, they didn't seem to notice him most of the time, which was just fine with him – it was that they were just generally acting strangely. One Monday morning, not only did conservative, strait-laced Uncle Vernon come downstairs wearing a tie-dyed tee-shirt that was on inside out and backwards, but Dudley, who hated exercise, spent a good portion of the morning doing somersaults in the living room while Aunt Petunia made crème brulée for breakfast. And then there was that time the whole family spent an entire Saturday afternoon throwing rotten fruit at the picket fence surrounding the Dursleys' yard. Or all those times when they would criticize Harry's appearance – that was certainly nothing new – but not blink an eye when he used the word "magic," which had always been certain to cause an uproar in the Dursley household.  
  
Too tired to ponder the complexities of Dursley behavior any further, Harry turned his attention back to the knitting needles. He knew that it wasn't impossible; he'd seen other people do it, after all. There had to be some trick to it… had to… had to…  
  
He was concentrating so hard on the knitting needles, he didn't notice his hand reaching to the yarn seemingly of its own accord, or his other hand picking up one needle and wrapping the yarn around it, until he realized that a row of neat stitches had fastened themselves onto one of the knitting needles as if by magic, and his right hand had started putting the other needle through the first loop.  
  
Magic…  
  
But he certainly hadn't been trying to cast a spell, and anyway, who had ever heard of a spell that could start a row of knitting stitches? He looked at the offending needle once again and started knitting the second row, surprised that he hadn't been able to do something so obvious, so easy, before.  
  
Six hours later, with finished scarf in hand and nursing a combination of cramp and rope – or in this case, string – burn in his right hand, he didn't notice the pair of glittering golden eyes watching him through the window, nor did he notice the owner of those eyes nodding to herself in satisfaction. Yes, she thought, everything is working out just fine. 


	4. I Love You Because The Voices In My Head...

I'd like to take this moment to apologize for the change in the summary. I did have a very good idea for a Ron/Moaning Myrtle fic, but I've found that I can't write it right now to save my life, so this story will be Ron/Hermione. (Sorry, Harry/Hermione shippers, but I just can't see that relationship working out. Harry tends to be a little too calm for someone as high-strung as Hermione; if they were boyfriend and girlfriend they would probably both become asphyxiated. Ron complements Hermione's personality much better – assuming that they don't kill each other, of course. Yes, I know. I spend time analyzing fictional characters. Scary, isn't it?) As for Harry, I'm probably going to pair him with Ginny, but I might pair him with Cho – I haven't really decided yet.  
  
Disclaimer: Not only do I own Harry Potter, I'm also the queen of the moon and have seven husbands; it's really much easier, relationship-wise, because I only see each of them once a week. I also own Guam, Cambodia, and Kentucky.  
  
Anyway.  
  
No, none of those things are mine. The Harry Potter universe and its wonderful characters all belong to J.K. Rowling, who deserves it a hell of a lot more than I do. This fanfiction, which I haven't made a cent from (and don't intend to) is written solely for the entertainment value of readers who are as obsessed as I am.  
  
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Chapter 3: I Love You Because The Voices In My Head Tell Me So  
  
Hermione Granger, Hogwarts' star student, hopeful Prefect, and most definitely NOT in love with a certain annoying, immature, and generally vexing redhead –  
  
'Ah, but he is cute, isn't he,' her hormones giggled.  
  
Hermione leapt to her feet, eyes blazing, before she remembered that her hormones were inside of her head and, as such, hadn't spoken out loud. "He is not cute! And you are not my opinions – you're only chemical reactions!"  
  
'Am not.'  
  
"Are too!"  
  
'Am not.'  
  
"Are too!"  
  
'Am not.'  
  
"Honey?" her mother called. "Could you keep it down in there?"  
  
Hermione blushed as she realized that she had been shouting. "Sorry, mum."  
  
Her hormones jumped at the sudden opportunity of silence – the vicious things. 'And if you don't like him, why have you been thinking about him constantly for the past four years?'  
  
"I most certainly have not!" And a few daydreams didn't really count – not really.  
  
'You most certainly have too.'  
  
"Have not!"  
  
'Have too."  
  
"Have not!"  
  
'Have too.'  
  
"Honey?"  
  
"Sorry, mum."  
  
'And why have you written down all those interesting names in your diary? Let me see, now… "Hermione Granger-Weasley, Mrs. Ron Weasley, Mrs. Hermione Weasley…"'  
  
"How dare you read my diary!"  
  
'I am you, you prat. I think what you think, remember?'  
  
"Well – well, I – that doesn't make it right!"  
  
'Yes, it does. I have every right in the world.'  
  
"You do not!"  
  
'Do so.'  
  
"Do not!"  
  
'Do so.'  
  
"Do not!"  
  
'Do so.'  
  
"Honey?"  
  
"Sorry, mum."  
  
"You should go to bed soon, dear. It's getting late."  
  
"It's only eleven."  
  
"I know that, but it's almost the end of the summer holidays. You'll be going off to school soon."  
  
"All right, mum. Goodnight!"  
  
"Goodnight, dear."  
  
As Hermione climbed into her nightgown, her hormones clambered mercilessly around her mind. 'You're in love with him, you know. I know that, and you do too.'  
  
"I am not!" she whispered back, turning off the light.  
  
'Are too.'  
  
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Ronald Weasley, the smartest, most handsome boy in Gryffindor – no, in all of Hogwarts – Quidditch player extraordinaire, and most definitely NOT in love with a certain bushy-haired know-it-all who wasn't even pretty –  
  
'But she looked quite good at the Yule Ball, didn't she?' a nasty little voice that Ron had no intention of paying any attention to whispered maliciously.  
  
"Shut up!" he snapped, making Pig hoot excitedly and do a sort of one- winged aerial dance. "And she did not!"  
  
'Then why did you get so upset because Krum took her instead of you?'  
  
"Because – because she was consorting with the enemy!"  
  
'Suuuure.'  
  
"It's true!" Pause. "And why am I arguing with myself anyway?"  
  
'Because I'm right and you know it.'  
  
"About what?"  
  
'That you are in love with a certain bushy-haired know-it-all who isn't even – "  
  
"She is too!"  
  
Pause. 'The prosecution rests.'  
  
Ron felt the blood rush to his ears. "Oh, bloody hell. Did I say that out loud?"  
  
'Yes. You did.'  
  
Ron tilted his face dramatically toward the ceiling and shouted, "WHY?" at the top of his lungs.  
  
Tragically, his answer did not take the form of divine guidance, but the sound of Ginny yelling, "Ron! Shut up in there!" from the other end of the corridor.  
  
"Thanks, God," he muttered sarcastically.  
  
'You're welcome.'  
  
"Agh! Are you still in there?"  
  
'No, I'm off sunbathing on Mercury. Of course I'm still here!'  
  
"Go away."  
  
'Not until you're honest with yourself.'  
  
"I am being honest!" A sudden thought occurred to him. "And while we're on the subject of being honest, why are you behaving as if you're completely outside of me when you're supposed to come from inside my own head?"  
  
There was an embarrassed pause. 'Was I being that obvious?'  
  
That stopped him dead in his tracks. "You mean you really are separate from me?"  
  
Longer pause. 'I won't answer that.'  
  
"Come on, give it up. You really are somebody else, aren't you?"  
  
He thought he felt a faint sense of chagrin, then – was it a shrug? 'Oh, all right. Look, I can't explain too much now, but you'll understand when the school year starts. Can you give our… ah… scar-headed friend a message for me?'  
  
"Can't you just send owls like normal people?"  
  
'Listen, Weasley,' the other voice said in tones of tight impatience, 'I'm on a tight schedule here. Harry's going to be hearing from me later this week, so I don't need you to do this, but it'll go much quicker if you do, and if it goes much quicker there's a better chance that I'll have time to do other things that need doing, and if I do those things that means that there might be a chance that the universe won't be destroyed! Now will you deliver the damn message?'  
  
"Well, if you put it that way…"  
  
'Exactly. Now, I want you to copy this down, word for word. Do you have parchment and ink on hand?'  
  
"Hang on." He rummaged through his desk for writing materials. "Got it."  
  
'Good.' The voice paused. 'Tell Harry that when the Doom Carrots fly, remember this: As I knit it, so mote it be.'  
  
Ron blinked. "Er – are you sure that's the right message?"  
  
'Positive.' The voice was sounding very dry for some reason. 'I've had plenty of time to mull it over. Just send him the message. Believe me, he'll need it.'  
  
"Who are you, anyway?"  
  
'A friend.' Before Ron could protest, the voice continued. 'Oh, and a word of advice before I go: You might want to get closer to Hermione before this next year is over. I wasn't just trying to get you to admit your feelings for my amusement, you know. Now, go to sleep. You'll need it, and I'll explain everything once you get to school. Good night.' And the voice was gone.  
  
Ron sat still for a while, mouth open slightly at what he had just heard. Finally, he shook his head, got up, and put on his pajamas, thinking no more of the strange voice and what it had told him. But as he blew out his candle and lay back in bed, he looked out the window at where the garden gnomes were sneaking back into the garden over the hedge and whispered, "Good night!"  
  
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The golden-eyed woman cursed to herself as she ran away from the Burrow into the surrounding woods. The Granger girl had been easy enough to trick – she was bright, but still did not believe in the supernatural, for all that she was a witch – but this boy had come close to finding her out. Dangerously close.  
  
She shrugged to herself. Mafinki-Phurphenblossom might not approve, but no harm was done, and Mafinki-Phurphenblossom was hardly in a position to approve or disapprove of anything anymore. Once again, she cursed the dead goddess whose avatar she was. Bad enough that her Lady should be the goddess of baking, thus saddling her with this ridiculous task, but the fact that she was also the goddess of pronouns made it impossible to tell any of the assorted "chosen ones" who seemed to grow and spread among the centuries like destiny-infected fungi what they were born to do in the first place. They thus spent a good portion of their formative years floundering around, trying to figure things out, when they could be doing much more constructive things with their time. No, it was just as well that the Weasley boy had found her out; they could then move past the cryptic preliminaries and get on with their lives – and she would, after endless centuries of waiting, be free of her unwanted obligation to a dead goddess.  
  
Elba Mafinki-Phurphenblossom, once Elba Hawkes, tilted back her head and smiled, raising her arms to the sky as though to embrace the stars. A passerby, if there had been anyone walking through the woods in the middle of the night, would have seen a tall blonde woman with her arms raised as if in homage. Her face held no particular beauty, nor was her figure terribly spectacular, but there was something about her – or was it only the strange glamour of the starlight filtering through the trees?  
  
The starlight glittered around her briefly, and then she was gone, the long golden hair that fell to the ground the only sign of her passing. 


	5. Cooking Lessons

I'm back, boys and girls! I won't tell you too much about what goes on in this chapter, but be sure not to miss the gratuitous Order of the Phoenix reference near the end. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)  
  
Disclaimer: Don't you have better things to do than read disclaimers that tell you things you already know?  
  
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Chapter 4: Cooking Lessons  
  
Severus Snape was not amused.  
  
He was pacing up and down the hallways of Malfoy Manor, looking like a large, disgruntled bat. A very dangerous large, disgruntled bat.  
  
Passing the study door for the twentieth time that afternoon, he glowered at it as if to make the locking spells that Lucius had placed on it evaporate by the sheer force of his glare. During his tenure as a professor at Hogwarts, he had used that glare on students many times, and to great effect. The door, however, was unimpressed.  
  
Giving up, he called, "Lucius?"  
  
There was a muffled sound from within.  
  
"Lucius?"  
  
"Go away."  
  
"Ah, it speaks." It occurred to him after he spoke that sarcasm might not be the best option in this case, but it was too late to retract what he had already said.  
  
And besides, Severus Snape was never wrong.  
  
"Are you coming out, or do you want me to break down your door?" He winced inwardly; here was one of the many side effects of too much time spent with that idiot Gryffindor, Sirius Black. Black might not have been either a Death Eater or a mass murderer – a pity, really, as either condition might have improved him – but in the far-too-numerous conversations they had had since Dumbledore had foisted their companionship off on one another – all three of them – Severus had long since come to the conclusion that Black was still the same foolhardy jackass with all the subtlety of an enraged volcano who had thought it would be amusing to feed a "Slimy Slytherin" to a werewolf.  
  
Giving himself a mental shove, he pulled himself back to the task at hand. He had better things to do than consider that… that… Gryffindor. "Lucius?"  
  
The door opened.  
  
Had Severus not kept complete control of himself, he would have gaped at Lucius' appearance. His normally sleek hair was disheveled, his robes were wrinkled and spotted with – well, whatever it was – and he looked as though he hadn't shaved since he had shut himself in his study several days ago when faced with the rather bizarre prospect of "getting in touch with his inner child" – whatever that was supposed to mean.  
  
"Sheverush," he said in a slurred voice, breath heavy with the scent of alcohol. "What're ya doing 'ere?"  
  
"You invited me here, Lucius," Severus replied as though speaking to a very young child. "Remember?"  
  
The other man blinked owlishly. "Did I?" He shrugged. "Well, come in. The floor ish til – hic! – tilting shomeshing awfuh, buh I feel wunnerful."  
  
Severus followed him into the study, stepping over several empty brandy bottles, and cursing whatever divinities might be listening for putting him in this situation. Whatever atonement he owed the world – and he owed plenty – surely it could not be as harsh as trying to teach a very drunk Lucius Malfoy how to bake.  
  
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Five hours, three more bottles of brandy, and twelve sacks of upturned flour later, a very disheveled Severus Snape had Apparated to Remus Lupin's somewhat ramshackle house in the countryside. Given its secluded location – monthly werewolf transformations weren't exactly conducive to an active social life – the house had been deemed the perfect location of the headquarters of the Semi-Official League Of Wizards Fighting Against Voldemort. (Nobody could be bothered to think of a better name.) Walking from the Apparition point to the house – Dumbledore had set up anti- Apparition wards around the place as an added precaution – he was greeted by the sight of Sirius Black in his Animagus form… frolicking.  
  
"Enjoying yourself?" Severus called acerbically as he passed.  
  
With what could only be called a doggy shrug, the dog changed into his usual form. "You could say that," he replied with an insouciant grin. "You seemed to be doing well enough with Malfoy. Doesn't have too much in the way of talent at cooking, does he?"  
  
Severus stopped dead in his tracks. The only possible way that Black would have been able to witness that scene was if…  
  
"That… woman… isn't here, is she?"  
  
The grin grew, if possible, even wider. "Right on one." They started walking toward the house. "She came by this morning. Said she missed the unique atmosphere."  
  
Severus snorted in spite of himself. If one could say anything for the mood of the house when that… that… woman was there, one could certainly say that it was unique.  
  
And noisy. Very, very noisy. He recalled with a shudder that awful scene involving the jar of paint and the smoked herring.  
  
Trying to keep an optimistic outlook and failing miserably, he walked through the door, a still-smirking Black following close behind. Probably didn't want to miss any of the show, the miserable cur.  
  
"Miss Mafinki-Phurphenblossom," he said, throwing the first punch. "It's so utterly delightful to see you again. I've grown weary of the tedium of being able to hear myself think."  
  
"Nice to see you too, sweetheart," she snapped. She looked at him speculatively. "Tell me, is that your hair, or did something crawl on top of your head and die?"  
  
"Oh, brilliant comeback," he sneered. "I'm quivering in awe of your genius."  
  
"Elba, Severus," a quiet voice interjected from the living room doorway, "would you mind waiting until later to behave like children?"  
  
"Aw, c'mon, Moony," Black said mock-plaintively. "Think how much more space we'll have if they kill each other off."  
  
Stepping into view, Remus Lupin gave his longtime friend a very long look. "That's not funny, Padfoot."  
  
"Oh, don't worry on my account," Severus drawled. "My life's ambition is to be insulted by an unwashed Azkaban escapee."  
  
Black grinned wolfishly. "You mean your old friends have never insulted you?"  
  
"Probably not," that insufferable woman cut in. "Since our greasy compatriot here doesn't have any friends, he can't very well be insulted by them, can he?"  
  
"No," Black said thoughtfully, "that's not true. I'm sure that the fungus in the Hogwarts dungeons will always be there for him."  
  
That woman nodded sagely. "Yes, you're probably right. He probably has a very nice relationship with the pickled crocodile livers as well."  
  
"Very funny," Severus said scathingly. "If you've finished admiring your comic wit, would you mind it terribly if we actually do something constructive with our time?"  
  
"Thank you, Severus," Lupin said gravely. His face was expressionless, but there was muffled laughter in the werewolf's eyes.  
  
Damn him.  
  
"Well, then," Severus said as professionally as possible under the circumstances – Black and that woman were making faces at each other and gesticulating wildly. Severus looked at them briefly, decided that he was better off not knowing, and turned his full attention on Lupin. "Voldemort has decided to move his plans for the Cake forward," he began.  
  
"Well, obviously," that woman snapped. "Details, Snapiekins, details. What exactly is Voldemort doing?"  
  
Severus clenched his teeth at the sound of another one of that woman's ridiculous appellations – an appellation that would undoubtedly be repeated many times, from the gleeful look on Black's face – but managed to say, "The Dark Lord has not chosen to confide in me, but he did instruct me to increase the pace of Lucius Malfoy's training, which indicates that he has some definite time constraints. Bear in mind, though, that what lesser Death Eaters are doing is only the first stages of creating the Cake. That's all that I can glean for now." He glanced at that woman. "Unless our resident quasi-deity would like to shed some light on the subject?"  
  
Frustration filled that woman's face. "I told you, I'm not capable of giving you any specifics that you don't already know." She shrugged. "Believe me, if I could be more direct, I would."  
  
Black raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I don't believe that there's nothing we can do," he muttered. "Isn't there, Elba?"  
  
That woman shrugged again. "Like I said before, we can't do anything until the school year starts – and then it's up to Potter."  
  
"Oh, wonderful," Severus groaned. "Excuse me while I go reserve a coffin for myself."  
  
That woman stared at him coldly. "Don't judge what you don't understand," she snapped. "The boy isn't all-powerful, but for this task he is more than capable."  
  
Severus arched an eyebrow. "We'll see."  
  
There was a brief, awkward silence. "So," Black said brightly, "has anyone come up with any ideas for a name? Arabella spent the whole morning chasing me with her broomstick when she heard what we had." He rubbed his head. "For an old woman, she's the most athletic person I've ever met."  
  
"What about the Order of the Phoenix?" Lupin suggested, ignoring the last comment. "It's an appropriate name for a group that's fighting the Dark Arts."  
  
Black considered it. "Nah," he said finally. "It'll never catch on." 


	6. Blood And Herring

I know, I know… IT'S LATE! But this chapter has been exceptionally stubborn to write, so…  
  
A word to the wise before we start in on Chapter 5. You'll notice that I have written from Voldemort's point of view for the second time this story. That isn't a coincidence; I love writing the bad guys. (I also wrote an interior monologue called "And In The End" that is also from Voldemort's POV, and for Lord of the Rings fans I wrote a piece from Sauron's POV, if anyone is interested.) Expect to see more of that. Call me evil if you will, but I really get a kick out of these guys. They're just so… well… evil! Seriously, though, Voldemort's character is an odd combination of malevolence and childishness that I think is absolutely fascinating; writing him makes for very interesting character study.  
  
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. I belong to me. Trees belong to the ground. Get the picture?  
  
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Chapter 5: Blood And Herring  
  
The rest of the summer passed without incident – very strangely, mind you, but without incident. If Harry hadn't known better, he could have sworn that Fudge was right, that Voldemort hadn't actually risen again. Oh, the Dursleys were still acting oddly, but Harry couldn't complain, since this new behavior was definitely preferable to the old. And if Ron sent odd messages and behaved as though he was keeping secrets, or Hermione was sounding downright defensive about Ron nowadays – well, he had had suspicions about how his two best friends felt about each other for quite a while, and he reckoned that they were probably entitled to behave somewhat differently. All in all, a quiet, uneventful summer.  
  
That is, until the dream.  
  
He had gone to bed early that night after a dinner of blanched cauliflower with chocolate syrup. He was dozing peacefully when…  
  
"Potter? Potter!"  
  
Harry opened his eyes, and knew immediately that wherever he was, it certainly wasn't his bedroom. He was sitting in what looked like Uncle Vernon's office at Grunnings, looking at the tall woman behind the desk who stared at him critically. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The woman's gaze made him feel like an insect under a Muggle microscope.  
  
"Well, finally," she said briskly. "Honestly, Harry, you're the most stubborn mortal I've ever met. It's taken me all summer to chip through your mental defenses enough to talk with you."  
  
Harry looked at her, not sure whether he was being complimented or insulted – and he definitely didn't like the sound of "chipping through your mental defenses." Still, she didn't seem to want to hurt him. "Er – do I know you?" he asked quizzically.  
  
The woman grimaced. "Look," she said. "Like I was telling your friend Ron the other day, I'm on a tight schedule, so don't ask unnecessary questions, okay?"  
  
"You've talked to Ron?"  
  
"Obviously," the woman said acidly. "Now, let's get down to business. Has Ron passed on my message to you about the Doom Carrots?"  
  
"You mean the one about knitting?"  
  
"Bingo." It was said in the same acerbic tone as before, but Harry thought that he detected a faint note of relief in her voice. "I can't say too much now, but remember that, or you don't have a chance of surviving this year."  
  
Harry shivered in spite of himself. "What's going to happen this year?"  
  
The woman grimaced again. "You never make things easy, do you?" she murmured as though speaking to herself, and then held up a hand to forestall Harry's response. "Never mind, don't answer that. I can't say anything directly, but I'll give you a hint. What comes to mind when you think of knitting?"  
  
Harry thought about it. "It makes sense," he said finally. "All the stitches make sense."  
  
The woman closed her eyes in relief. "Thank God for small favors. Yes, Harry, all the stitches make sense. Keep that in mind when you learn what Voldemort is up to." Suddenly her head cocked to one side as though she was listening to a voice that nobody but she could hear. "Oh," she said finally, as though as an afterthought, "I almost forgot. Here." She tossed him a… was it a fish? "You'll be needing this."  
  
Harry stared at the pure white herring in his hands. His head was swimming with questions, each more confused than the last, but what came out of his mouth was, "Er – why is this herring white?"  
  
The woman sighed. "It's a long story. Suffice it to say that I will never, ever eat fish again." There was an awkward pause. "Well," she said finally, "you'll be needing to go to sleep for real now. Goodnight!" And with that, Uncle Vernon's office vanished, and Harry had once again lapsed into blessedly dreamless sleep.  
  
In the morning, as he yawned his way out of bed, he was tempted to think that the dream was simply a bizarre mental reaction brought on by a combination of anxiety about Voldemort and many strange meals. After all, how could knitting possibly defeat evil or the Doom Carrots – whatever they were? All in all, the whole thing seemed absurd.  
  
But he kept the pure white herring that he had found on his pillow, just to be on the safe side.  
  
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At the same time that Harry Potter was debating the merits of whether or not to believe in the power of herring, his mortal enemy was debating the merits of whether or not to throttle Lucius Malfoy.  
  
"Soooo," Voldemort said, drawing out the moment for as long as possible, "tell me again why your alcohol expenses are so high."  
  
Malfoy shifted nervously. He seemed completely sober right now, but Voldemort took a certain vindictive pleasure in noticing that the other man's eyes were distinctly bloodshot. "Well, er, that is – "  
  
"I thought so." The Dark Lord watched his servant through slitted eyes. "Now let me make something clear to you – unless, of course, such a task would be too difficult for your diminutive brain." Oh, what he would give for a loyal, intelligent pureblood to work with. Years of observing various pureblood families had brought him to the conclusion that while some were worth the breathing space they took up, the vast majority were completely worthless.  
  
Not that he would ever admit that to anybody out loud.  
  
"I – I'm listening, My Lord," Malfoy stammered.  
  
"Good boy," Voldemort drawled, observing with great interest as Malfoy's face alternated between terror, indignation, and an expression that could only be called constipated. Hmm. Now that would be an interesting art project once the man had died, as he inevitably would – preferably messily. Perfect an embalming spell so that his death mask shifted through the various Malfoy Expressions: Enraged, drunk, terrified, constipated… oh, the possibilities were endless!  
  
Noticing Malfoy watching him attentively, he pulled his attention away from the flowing of his creative juices and said, "You're aware, I believe, that the recipe for the Cake requires the sacrifice of a pureblood wizard?"  
  
"Yes, My Lord," Malfoy replied, sounding puzzled. "You said that you would be using Harry Potter."  
  
"Yes." Oh, he would be looking forward to that day. "However, Lucius, the recipe does not specifically call for Potter. Before the actual sacrifice took place, it would be simplicity itself to substitute another wizard."  
  
He could not suppress a faint smirk as that statement began to sink in. "M-My Lord," Lucius stammered. "Surely, you aren't suggesting that – "  
  
"No, Lucius, you are quite safe. I still have use for you. However, your son Draco – who, as you've taken such trouble to inform every living organism on the planet, is a pureblood – carries no such guarantees. Now, I would truly hate to lose such a promising young Death Eater. However," his voice had now sunk into a whisper, "do not mistake me, Lucius. If I learn of even one more drop of alcohol passing through your lips between now and the final stages of creating the Cake, Draco will take Potter's place."  
  
"My Lord – "  
  
"You heard me, Lucius." Voldemort paused, drinking in the terror in Malfoy's face. "You have your duties. Now go."  
  
After the man had left, the Dark Lord leaned back, satisfied. He did not expect to have to carry out his threat – Malfoy, being the shrinking coward that he was, would probably make absolutely certain that every drop of liquor within a ten-mile radius of Malfoy Manor was eliminated – but even so, as much as he hated to waste a potentially useful servant, nothing could jeopardize the creation of the Cake. Besides, once he had succeeded, he could do quite well without servants.  
  
A sudden pain in his hands made him look down, and he realized that he was clenching his hands so tightly that his nails had pierced the skin, but somehow he didn't care. He closed his eyes, savoring the anticipation of power. Soon. The Cake would be his, and Potter would be destroyed. Soon. Soon. 


	7. Why Terrorist Cults And Family Don't Rea...

WHOO HOO! After an egregious delay, another chapter! Oh, does life get any better than this?

No, don't answer that.

Anyway, to answer Ozma's question, what Harry has figured out about "current events" is almost totally subconscious, since that's the way his mind works. He isn't stupid – far from it – but he generally tends to be more intuitive than logical, meaning that his subconscious is usually on the ball long before his conscious. (I have a theory about why this is, but it probably won't fully come into play until Harry's seventh year.) In this situation, his subconscious is pretty sure about what he's supposed to do, but all he's aware of consciously is that it's probably a good idea to keep the herring and that knitting has suddenly become enormously interesting. Other than that…

One last thing before we finally begin. This chapter will be a bit more serious than previous chapters, but don't worry – more craziness is just around the next proverbial corner.

Any more questions? Any quests? Any equestrians? ONWARD!

Disclaimer: Blah blah blah blah Harry Potter and related characters blah blah I don't own them blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blahblah? Blah blah blah blah Harry Potter blah blah J.K. Rowling blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blahblah. BLAH!

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Chapter 6: Why Terrorist Cults And Family Don't Really Mix

When Lucius Malfoy arrived at Malfoy Manor, he didn't stop to speak to Draco, didn't ask Narcissa how her day had been, didn't do anything that he normally did upon arriving at home. He simply went straight to his study and braced his head in his hands, wishing as he had never wished before that he could have a drink to calm his nerves. Maybe then he could forget the Dark Lord's ultimatum. Maybe then his hands would stop shaking.

And the fact that having something to drink was what had put him in this position in the first place was not lost on him.

When he had become a Death Eater after graduating from Hogwarts, he hadn't regretted it then, and he still didn't regret it now. At his full strength, Voldemort was a leader who anyone in his right mind would be proud to follow, and Lucius was a firm believer in the pureblood cause. He would always be loyal to the Dark Lord, and gladly. He shouldn't balk at any of Voldemort's orders.

But Draco…

The mediwitch had been clear on that score the day of Draco's birth: Narcissa would bear no more children. Lucius hadn't been allowed inside the birthing room, but the blood that had streaked the witch's robe had spoken for itself. Even magical healing could only do so much. Both Narcissa and Draco had survived unblemished, thank Merlin, but since that day there had been the tacit but absolute expectation that neither childbirth nor Draco's conspicuous lack of siblings would ever be discussed in the Malfoy household.

And now this.

The implication in Voldemort's command had been absolutely clear: Draco was expendable. Oh, there might not be any danger in this case – Lucius would make sure of that – but there was no guarantee for the next time that his son was used as a prod. Or the next time. Or the time after that.

He would never betray his master, but he wouldn't let his son and heir die because of the father's indiscretions. Clearly, Draco was in need of some outside protection. Someone who was powerful, yet totally unaffiliated with the Death Eaters. Who could possibly –

Well, the answer to THAT was obvious.

Lucius' lip curled at the thought of his son under the thumb of a Muggle-loving fool like Albus Dumbledore, but there was no help for it. If Draco was to avoid having his chest split open on an altar block, he would need powerful allies other than his father's contacts. And Dumbledore, much as Lucius hated to admit it, was certainly a powerful wizard. Powerful enough, perhaps, to stay the hand of Lord Voldemort.

But how to get Draco under the Mudblood-lover's protection?

Well, that was simple. It might be suspicious if Draco approached Dumbledore directly, but Potter, now… In addition to being the Golden Boy of the wizarding world, Potter was widely known around the school to be one of the Headmaster's favorites. If Draco appealed to Potter, perhaps spouting some drivel about a change of heart, Potter, being an idiotically noble Gryffindor, would undoubtedly leap at the chance to redeem a "Slimy Slytherin." And as to explaining his son's sudden "redemption" to Voldemort, it was reasonable – no, understandable – for Lucius Malfoy, the perfect Death Eater, to want to place a spy in the enemy's camp. And if Draco was corrupted by the influence of Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers… no, he was being foolish. His son would never become a Muggle-lover. He was sure of that. Draco would live – he would! – to become a fully-fledged Death Eater and Dark Wizard, and would eventually sire heirs of his own.

Ideologies might change, but Malfoys were forever.

Feeling more lighthearted than he ever had since coming home, Lucius lifted his head out of his hands, and set out to owl his proposal to Lord Voldemort.

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Three Weeks Later

Grumbling inwardly about stupid Ministry regulations that wouldn't let him use a Levitation Charm outside of school, Draco Malfoy trudged along platform Nine and Three-Quarters with his trunk in tow. If either Vincent or Gregory had been there, he could have dragooned either of them into hauling his trunk for him, but neither Vincent nor Gregory were anywhere to be seen. Normally, he wouldn't have minded all that much – growing up as an only child had made him relatively solitary by nature, and neither of the two hulking idiots were much good for anything beyond heavy lifting or agreeing with everything he said – but getting on the Hogwarts Express without his two sycophants made him feel oddly exposed.

Particularly in light of his father's request.

He still wasn't too certain how he felt about it. Oh, he would do it – he respected his father too much to do otherwise, and it would be worth it to stick it to those self-righteous Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers – but the thought of even pretending to be friends with Potter and his cronies made Draco's stomach turn.

Perfect Potter.

Potter, who was adored for no better reason than having a stupid scar on his forehead. Potter, who was favored by nearly every teacher in the school right up to Dumbledore. Potter, who had broken nearly every school rule in the book but had never gotten more than detention. Potter, who had refused Draco's friendship on the very first train-ride but still expected Draco to be civil. Potter the Triwizard champion, Hogwarts' star Seeker, Champion of the Oppressed, and general all-around Hero with a capitol H.

He wasn't even all that good-looking or even all that powerful, Draco thought, giving his trunk a vengeful tug. A scrawny little boy with perpetually messy hair and a voice that still sounded like it had at eleven, Potter was generally unimpressive. Hardly the kind of wizard you'd expect to save the world.

Draco's thoughts were disturbed by the brief sensations of tripping and falling before landing flat on his face, the momentum causing the hood of his brand new robes to fly up and land messily on top of his head. As he started to get up, footsteps sounded nearby, and an all-too-familiar voice said, "Need help?"

Freezing in shock at the sound of Potter's voice – _oh, Father, I wasn't prepared for this_ – Draco accepted Potter's help, making a mental note to wash his hands afterward, then flipped down the hood of his cloak to reveal his face and casually said, "Thanks."

He waited for a response, enjoying the other boy's shock. Finally, Potter said, "Er – you're welcome," before turning and stepping onto the train.

When Potter had gone, Draco stood still for a moment, silently willing his head to stop spinning. He could do this. He was a Malfoy, he was a wizard, and he was a pureblood. For his father's sake, he could do this.

He was sure that he was only imagining that he had actually enjoyed that one brief, civil exchange.


	8. Ye Gods and Little Fishies

Gack! I'm horribly sorry about the wait, everybody – there's absolutely no excuse for a four-month delay, if you don't count the fact that I was feeling rather lazy. *smacks self* So… y'all get an extra-long chapter this time. I had a lot of fun writing the first scene; one of the most entertaining things to watch (and write) in the HP universe is the way Ron and Hermione interact. *pats them on the heads* They're so cute when they're in denial.

A brief word about the various pairings: In addition to the usual Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny (I'm actually more or less a Harry/Anyone Who Works For the Particular Fic shipper, but Harry/Ginny was convenient in this case), I'm also adding in Draco/Pansy. Not that it's terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but I thought it would be only humane to give all you Pansy-haters out there a chance to run screaming into the wilderness we call ffn.net before you see me giving Pansy a… a… (insert horrified scream here) a personality! Oh, the horror of it all!

And lastly: Don't worry if you don't understand the chapter title yet; all will be made clear to thee in the fullness of time, and all that crap. Seriously, though, you'll know what it means by the end of the next chapter at the very latest, if you haven't already figured it out. *cackles* Not that I'd actually _help_ you, of course…

Disclaimer: Listen up, sugarplum – I don't own Harry Potter.

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Chapter 7: Ye Gods And Little Fishies

Hermione had changed over the summer, and those changes were starting to make Ron nervous.

Very nervous.

Extremely nervous.

Not that he liked her That Way, of course; the voice he had heard, which was probably just a dream anyway, since he wasn't really the sort who heard voices, had been dead wrong. Must have been wrong. He was just… surprised. Yes, that was it. Surprised. He was surprised. Yes. Surprised. Surprised at the way her figure had developed, the way her face seemed to have become even prettier – _wait, did I just think that?_ – but those things had nothing to do with anything, because he didn't like her That Way. And he was _not_ nervous. And his brain did _not_ feel like a hamster on speed whenever he looked at her.

Damn.

Maybe he was just concerned about Harry, what with You-Know-Who being back and all. Yes, that was it. He was concerned. Concerned about Harry, that is. And if the thought of Death Eaters hurting Hermione because she was Muggle-born made him break out in a cold sweat – well, that was what best friends were for, right? So it had nothing to do with whether or not he liked Hermione That Way. Nothing at all. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing –

And the faint smirk on Ginny's face as she looked between them was Not Helping.

Finally, unable to stand the way she was implying something that was absolutely, positively, totally, and completely wrong, he turned to her and snapped, "What are _you_ laughing about?"

This, however, only served to make the smirk even wider as Hermione immediately retorted, "Ron! Don't bully her!"

"I wasn't bullying her," he protested. "I was just asking a simple question!"

Hermione huffed, but didn't reply. Ron shook his head and looked out the window, trying not to look at either Hermione (who, damn it, did _not_ look cute when she was angry) or at Ginny, who was innocently gazing at the ceiling. Girls. He would never understand them.

Finally (having grown bored with staring out the window) he turned his head back in Ginny and Hermione's direction and said, "I wonder where Harry is. You don't think those lousy Muggles are keeping him away, do you?"

"Don't be silly, Ron," Hermione said immediately, although she looked a bit nervous. "Dumbledore wouldn't let them. They're probably just running late."

"Look," Ginny put in suddenly. "Is that him?"

Ron glanced out the window again. Sure enough, Harry was making his way through the croud, trunk in tow. Almost reflexively, Ron let out a sigh of relief and turned to Hermione. "Guess you were right," he said, grinning.

She rolled her eyes as if to say, "Well, of course I'm right!" but smiled back.

Now, if he could just get Ginny to stop smirking like that, everything would be perfect.

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Ron hadn't changed – well, not much. He was still the gangly, grinning boy she had said goodbye to at the end of last term. A little older, maybe, and a bit more serious since the rise of Voldemort, but still basically the same person. So why this sudden nervousness around him? It simply didn't make any sense. And Hermione had always prided herself on being a logical thinker.

"Say, Hermione," Ginny said in a suspiciously casual tone, "how did your visit with Viktor go? You didn't say anything about it in your letters."

At this, Ron's head snapped up from where he had been watching Harry's approach, but said nothing. For some reason, Hermione felt her cheeks grow slightly pink. "I didn't get to visit him," she said rather ruefully. "My parents didn't think I was old enough to go alone." Why on earth did she sound so defensive? There was no reason to. No reason at all.

"You didn't go?" Ron said in a slightly strangled voice.

She glared at him, annoyed. "I'm not lying, if that's what you mean."

"Who said I thought you were lying? I was just surprised, that's all."

For some reason, that irritated her even more. "Oh, you've become a Seer over the holiday?"

"Erm."

The sound of Harry's voice made all three of them turn to the doorway. (Ginny had turned pink, and, from the look of it, was working her way up to bright red. Harry, mercifully, didn't seem to notice.) "Harry!" Hermione cried, leaping out of her seat to give him a hug. Maybe it wasn't the most socially correct thing to do, but she couldn't help it. Harry was just one of those people who could raise the protective (dignity forbade her from saying "maternal" – that was Mrs. Weasley's area) instincts of a particularly insensitive rock.

"Hi, Hermione," he said, grinning at her as he dragged his trunk inside. "How was Bulgaria? You didn't say anything about it in your letters."

Ron choked.

"I couldn't go," Hermione said, trying to not look at Ron. "My parents wouldn't let me."

"Good thing, too," Ron muttered. "What do we know about what that git gets up to?"

Eyes flashing, Hermione turned on him. "Oh, honestly! You didn't think that he was such a git when you were asking for his autograph, did you?"

"That was completely different!"

"How?"

"Because – because it just was!" With that piece of brilliant logic, Ron turned to Harry. "You doing all right, mate?"

Harry gave him a lopsided grin. "Yeah," he said. "I think so. Are you still going out for the Quidditch team?"

Ron snorted. "Of course! I've been practicing all summer! Hey, did you hear – " And they were off, talking about some obscure match that, she was sure, only a male Quidditch fanatic could possibly think was significant.

_Boys!_

Determined to not feel left out of the conversation, she turned to Ginny. "So," she said, "are you thinking of trying out for the team?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "No," she said. "Mum would have a fit. She won't let me near a broom unless I promise to stay away from the Quidditch pitch."

"Why not? She lets your brothers play."

"One of Fred's practice Bludgers broke my arm when I was nine – it wasn't serious," she added upon seeing Hermione's worried expression. "But now Mum is paranoid about it." She giggled. "Maybe I should try out for Beater next year."

"Ginny!" Hermione choked, trying to keep a straight face. "That's terrible!"

"What's this about Ginny being a Beater?" Ron interjected, looking puzzled.

"Nothing, Ron," Hermione said as calmly as possible, trying not to look at Ginny, who was shaking with laughter.

Ron shook his head. "Nutters, both of them," he told Harry (who looked like he was fighting a grin) loud enough for the two girls to hear. "Absolute nutters."

"Well, Weasley," came a familiar drawling voice, "it looks like we actually agree on something."

Ron's brows drew sharply together, and his fists clenched. "Sod off, Malfoy," he gritted out.

Malfoy just smirked. "God, Weasley, can't you come up with anything more original? 'Sod off, Malfoy,'" he said in a high-pitched voice. "It was fine when we were eleven but now – oh, I forgot. You never bothered to grow up, did you, Weasley?"

"At least he's not still a runty little ferret," Hermione snapped. Bloody Malfoy. Bloody, _stupid_ Malfoy. "Missed out on that growth spurt again, didn't you?"

Malfoy flushed. "It's none of your business, Mudblood," he snarled.

Immediately, Ron was out of his seat, but before he could punch Malfoy, Hermione heard Harry say, "What do you want, Malfoy?" Something in Harry's voice made her turn. Her eyes widened at the expression on his face. Instead of looking annoyed or angry as he normally did when talking to Malfoy, Harry looked oddly… analytical. Almost like a theater critic observing an interesting play. She shared a glance with Ron, who was clearly as confused as she was.

Maybe Malfoy saw it too, or maybe he didn't. But he turned to Harry and said, smirking, "Oh, nothing, Potter. I just wanted to say hello. The school year wouldn't be the same without our little annual get-together, would it?" And with that, he gave them a mocking little bow and said, "Potter. Mudblood. Weasley. Weaselette. It's been a pleasure to see you." It was probably fortunate for Malfoy – and for Ron too, Hermione reminded herself, she didn't want to see him going to Azkaban for strangling the little ferret – that he left when he did, as Ron managed to wrench his arm free of Harry's grip about thirty seconds after the compartment door had closed. "The little bastard," he snarled. "Calling Hermione that… that _name._ Like he's the ruler of the world. And you!" He turned on Harry. "What in bloody hell were you doing back there? You looked like you were sharing an inside joke with him!"

Harry looked thoughtful. "I don't know. Maybe I was." Before Ron could explode, Harry said quickly, "I mean, I still don't like Malfoy. You know that. But outside – well, it's weird, you know?"

"What happened outside?" Hermione asked quietly.

"He thanked me."

Ron looked absolutely flabbergasted. "He _what?"_

"He thanked me. He fell, and I helped him up before I saw who it was, and he thanked me. Just like that. No insults or anything. That's what's weird about it all."

Hermione's brow furrowed. "You don't think we should become friends with Malfoy, do you?"

"No," Harry said uncertainly. "Just… watch him, I guess. See if he does anything different this year." He shrugged. "All we _can_ do, really."

"He didn't have Crabbe or Goyle with him," Ginny put in, somehow managing to hide her blush. "Do you think that means something?"

Harry rubbed his head. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not." He looked at Ron, whose brow was furrowed. "What?"

"I don't know about anyone else," Ron said resolutely, "but if any of you give him a cute nickname, I'll disown you."

Hermione wasn't entirely sure why, but that made her feel much better. And as the whistle blew and the Hogwarts Express began to move, she couldn't help but grin.

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Draco was not stomping down the corridor. Oh, he might be making loud footsteps, but he was _not_ stomping. Malfoys did not stomp; it was a physical impossibility. Therefore, he was not stomping.

Satisfied to have worked it all out logically, he made his way into his own compartment. As he entered, Pansy looked up from her conversation with Blaize Zabini and smiled, really more of a smirk laden with sweet viciousness. It was the sort of smile one might see on the face of a well-fed sabre-toothed tiger. "Out of sorts, Draco darling?" she cooed nastily. "Did the big, mean Weasel hurt Ickle Drakiekins' tender feelings?"

He slumped down in his seat, trying to ignore the sardonic expression on Millicent Bulstrode's face – it was always rather unsettling to be laughed at by someone who looked like she shouldn't be able to understand any words with more than one syllable. (And he never, _ever_ wanted to know what Pansy told her troll-like friend about him.) "Oh, shut up," he said absently. "It's sort of a tradition by now. I hate to disappoint my public, you know."

"What, you're afraid that they might miss the way you annually go into their compartment and make a complete arse of yourself? Oh, Draco, I never knew that you cared."

"Shut up," he said again. "And I don't ever make an arse of myself."

Pansy shrugged. "Complete arsehood is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose."

He leered at her. "Oh, don't you wish."

She smirked at him, and went back to her conversation with Blaize.

Which left him to his own devices again. He'd always been rather surprised that being in Slytherin, the House of the self-sufficient (or, as Mother liked to say when Father wasn't around, the House of the paranoid and bloody-minded – she had always said that, being a Slytherin herself, she had a perfect right to describe her own House as she saw fit) he had always disliked being ignored, but there you had it. (Not that it was really something to worry about, of course; it couldn't possibly be a personality defect, as Malfoys didn't have personality defects.) On the up side, though, it gave him time to sort out his thoughts. So: look at it all logically. What had he accomplished since getting on the train?

One: Unless he had read Potter wrong, the other boy was now confused as hell.

_Oh, like that's really a big difference._

Two: Weasley still thought that he was the scum of the earth, and probably would continue to believe that until the universe degenerated back into the primordial ooze.

_Isn't it comforting how some things always stay the same?_

Three: He had no idea what Granger thought.

_Really smart of you, Draco._

Four: the mini-Weasley (Ninny or Ginger or whatever she was called), being firmly on the side of right and good and fluffy little bunny rabbits frolicking through the forest, no doubt thought some variation of what her brother did – but in a kind and caring way, of course_._

_Ah, Gryffindors. So squeaky clean you can almost smell the lemon polish._

Conclusion: He had accomplished absolutely nothing.

Well, so much for logic.

Maybe he could enlist Pansy. Maybe she and her friends could… No. Definitely not. Aside from the fact that he would owe her (a fact that she would undoubtedly wave in his face until his dying day, or at least until the favor was repaid), he didn't want to have to worry about a Pansy/Granger catfight, and he _really_ didn't want to think about what would happen if Hell froze over and they teamed up. Pansy by herself was bad enough; Pansy combined with Granger's researching skills (and he definitely had to admit that the girl definitely knew what to do with herself in the library, Mudblood or not) was just… no. Absolutely, positively not. At least not if he felt like keeping his sanity intact. Not to mention his reputation, his ego, and his wallet.

So Pansy was out, and, by extension, Millicent and Blaize. He'd never actually spoken to Millicent (at least not with a crowd of people around) but knew enough about her to know that she wouldn't get involved, partially to preserve her reputation as a mindless troll and partially because of the fact that, according to Pansy, she held any and all political infighting more or less in contempt, and would be perfectly content to ignore it as long as she got what she wanted. Which, according to Pansy, she usually did. Blaize, on the other hand, was far more interested in all the usual Slytherin games (threats, bribes, and screwing over anyone who gets in your way) and would therefore be susceptible. But she also had a tendency to follow Pansy's lead on things, meaning that if he enlisted her, she would tell Pansy – and the _last_ thing he wanted was to have Pansy after his blood for not letting her in on something potentially lucrative.

The boys, then? Well, Crabbe and Goyle were definitely out, but Will Nott… hmm. Will was a possibility, and had the added advantages of being both intelligent and the son of a Death Eater, but that was also a disadvantage: Will might tell the elder Nott, who would therefore have some clue as to what Father was doing, and he doubted that would make Father very happy no matter how much Will found out.

Well, that was the whole problem, wasn't it? The place where his social position was strongest (and therefore the place where he was most likely to find useful allies) was his own House, which was notoriously untrustworthy. Oh, he could probably charm a Hufflepuff girl or two, but honestly, what use were Hufflepuffs apart from wand fodder?

So he'd just have to rely on himself. Huh. Should be easy enough. They were just _Gryffindors,_ for God's sake. They'd lap his story of "redemption" right up. It would be no trouble. No trouble at all.

_Oh, help._

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Totally unaware of the fact that a few compartments down, one of his enemies was plotting his eventual manipulation, Harry was testing his skills as a Seer with Ron. Testing his ability to predict the taste of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans, that is. "Ah, Harry," Ron said sagely, tossing a bean into his mouth, and then wincing (Harry later found out that it had been soap-flavored), "I just don't understand why Trelawney doesn't use these. They're so _valuable_ for awakening my Inner Eye."

"Don't bother, Ron," Harry advised, picking out one that he sincerely hoped was lime, or something along those lines (it turned out to be mold, which he spat out). "Trelawney's jewelry just wouldn't do anything for you."

"Yeah, but if I was a Seer, I would have an excuse to not make any sense. Part of our otherworldly mystique, you know."

"You've never needed an excuse to not make any sense," Hermione said tartly, looking up from her book. "No wonder Ginny wanted to leave."

Ron mock-gasped, looking wounded. "So! The truth comes out! And to think that I actually believed that she wanted to sit with her friends."

Hermione snorted (it sounded suspiciously like a laugh to Harry) and turned back to her book. "Say, Hermione," he asked with sudden curiosity, "what are you reading? It's not _Hogwarts, A History, _is it?" he couldn't help adding. He heard Ron snicker.

"No," Hermione said with dignity, "it's not, actually. It's a study of magical dreams and – " She stopped at the arrested look on his face. "What is it?"

"I don't suppose you could find out – is there any way for objects to be given to people through their dreams?"

There was a long pause. "Well," she said finally, "I _suppose_ you could do it, in theory at least, but – Harry, nobody could contain that much power without burning themselves out. There's only so much the human body can hold."

"Well, how thick do they have to be, to write a whole book about something that can't be done?" Ron demanded. "Seems a bit pointless to me."

Hermione tutted impatiently. "Well, the whole book obviously isn't about just that, Ron. Honestly, if you'd just _read _–"

But Ron had already turned to Harry. "So I guess you got something from a dream over the summer?" At Harry's nod, his eyes widened. "Bloody hell, that's cool. Can I see it?"

"Ron!" Hermione snapped. "We don't even know who it came from, much less what it is! It might be dangerous. Harry, when we get to the castle, you were going to show it to Dumbledore right away, weren't you?"

"Er – " Actually, he had almost forgotten about the herring until he had asked Hermione about her book. But there was no need to tell her that. "Well, yeah." When Ron looked disappointed, he quickly added, "But there's no reason you two can't see it. I've been living with the thing for almost three weeks and it hasn't done anything." 

Hermione looked like she still might object, but Ron just rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, Hermione, what harm can one look do?" He looked at Harry eagerly. "Go on, show us."

"Hang on," Harry muttered, bending down to root through his trunk. "It's in here somewhere…" His fingers closed over the cardboard box that he had been keeping the herring in. He'd half expected it to stink up his room, but it had stayed perfectly fresh and almost odorless for the entire three weeks. "Got it." He lifted the box out of the trunk and tried to raise the lid.

The lid, however, had different ideas. No matter how much he tugged, and no matter how easily he had gotten it off before, it simply wouldn't come off. "Well," Hermione said, sounding rather relieved, "I guess that's it. You'll just have to take it to Dumbledore, Harry, and – "

No sooner did she speak these words, however, than the box began to tremble in Harry's hands. A light fluttering at first, but growing stronger by the second until he could barely hold onto it anymore – and there was a sense of gathering power, almost stunning in its intensity, that centered inside the box and its strangely-gifted… occupant? object? no matter, ripping through the conduit of his hands, screaming through his bloodstream, vibrating in his bones, sinew, muscle, tendon, marrow…

"Harry?" Ron's voice, scared and tense, cutting through the chaos. "Harry!" His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Only the power streaming outward, through him, ripping, cutting, shattering… "Harry! Harry, let go of the box! Let go!"

Let go? What did that mean?

Oh, yes. Relax the fingers…

He let the box go and it propelled itself straight backwards, colliding with Ron just in time to explode.

At least that was what it felt like. It threw him back upon impact, flinging him against the seat… the light was incredible, that flash of light far brighter than anything he'd ever seen, and twice as intense… he had no idea where Ron and Hermione were, no idea when it would end…

And then, miraculously, it stopped.

Groaning, Harry picked himself up and looked around, waiting for the afterimage to fade. When it did, he was shocked to see that, except for Ron and Hermione sprawled bonelessly on the floor and the innocent-looking cardboard box (along with the equally innocent-looking white herring lying beside it) sitting quietly beside Ron, nothing in the compartment had been disturbed. It was almost like the explosion had never happened. And yet…

"Ohhhhh…"

The sound of Hermione groaning herself awake immediately caught Harry's attention. "Hermione?" he called softly (he didn't think shouting would be a good idea right now).

Her eyes flickered open. "Harry?" she said groggily.

"Yeah. Look, I'm going to see if I can wake up Ron – he's out cold."

Sleepy eyes widened in alarm. "Ron?"

"Yeah. I'll try – just try to get yourself up. I'll wake him." He actually wasn't entirely sure about that, but there was no harm in trying.

Digging his wand out of his trunk, he cautiously approached his friend's prostrate form and shook him. "Ron? Ron, wake up."

No response. "Figures," he muttered. Then, _"Ennervate."_

Again, no response. "Let me help," Hermione said from behind him. He turned to see her standing, a bit shaky but still upright, with her wand in her hand.

"Okay, then," he said, sounding stronger than he felt. "Let's do it." Together, they pointed their wands at Ron's body and murmured, _"Ennervate."_

This time, Ron's eyes fluttered open, but as his body stirred, a new, unfamiliar voice filled the compartment. "Elba?" it cried. "Oh, Elba, you idiot, what have you _done?_ How could you let me languish like this? Oh, _how?"_ It was a woman's voice, deep, rich, and melodic. Harry didn't even know the person, but just from listening to that voice once, he felt like he could listen to her quite comfortably for years on end.

And it was coming from Ron's mouth.


End file.
